Friday was Game Night!
We had another group of 4 this time around and a mix of relatively quicker games.
Yomi
We started off with my Kickstarter edition of Yomi. Well, I say Kickstarter edition but the only difference is that I got the cards before they hit retail.
Two of the players were new to the game so we started off with rules explanations. Once that was done, we paired off to slug it out.
I controlled Jaina and my opponent had Gwen. Looking at Gwen stats, I was initially concerned as she was very attack heavy, just like Jaina. However, Gwen was much faster and had a higher combo.
Nonetheless, the first game went my way as my opponent was still learning the game. By the second match, he was up to speed and managed to wipe the floor with me as he managed to get in two big hits with double Ace's.
The third match was the decider and things did not get off to a good start as he, once again, managed to get off a big double Ace. Luckily, I managed to hit back hard with my own triple Ace and we took it down to the wire. In the last round, we were both running low on health.
Luckily, a good read on my part allowed me to get off a big hit and combo which ended the match!
2:1 in my favour!
Get Bit!
After Yomi, we decided to relax by playing Get Bit!
We only managed to fit in one game but, as always, we had a lot of fun laughing at the poor sod with partly eaten arms and legs. Unfortunately, in this case, that poor sod was me.
6 nimmt
By now the group started to break up and we were down to three. One of the other people had brought this game so we decided to try it out. Unfortunately, the rules explanation was a bit garbled as the owner didn't really remember the rules.
After the first learning game, we decided to play again with the "proper" rules. Unfortunately, halfway through the game, those rules changed again! It's a relatively simple game anyway so we decided to play 2 more games with the "proper proper" rules.
Despite being new to the game, I managed to pull off 2 wins so fairly chuffed, all things considered.
PS Even with the "proper proper" rules, something about them felt off so I looked up the game today to check out the official rules. Turns out that the "proper proper" rules we were using were still incorrect!
PPS The first sign that you have played too many games is when someone explains the rules of a game to you and, despite having no awareness of the game before, you correctly identify the incorrect rule in the rules explanation.
Aliens:This Time It's War
By now, it was getting late so we whipped out Aliens for a quick 2 player game to round off the night. This is the game that I soloed recently with the Aliens win.
As usual, I was the marines while my buddy controlled the Aliens. Unfortunately, a bad run of card draws on my end resulted in a relatively easy win for the Aliens. :(
Still, at least my friend was delighted to finally add another tick to his win column.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Hearthstone
I made a major mistake this week. I installed Hearthstone to see what the fuss is all about.
And it is really, really good.
I have played Magic in the past and, despite liking the game at first, I very quickly grew to dislike the game intensely primarily for two reasons. And Hearthstone manages to fix both of them! Is it any surprise that I'm currently a little hooked?
Land as mana
In Magic, land cards form part of your deck and actually represents the mana resources you use to play cards. The problem with this is that your ability to actually play is wholly dependent on your ability to draw land cards.
I have literally lost count of the number of games where I never drew any additional land and played most of the game with just the 2 or 3 land that I had in my starting hand. Similarly, I have too many memories of games where I drew nothing but land and ended up with 10 land out on the playing field by turn 10. Both of those situations are pretty much insta-lose which is extremely frustrating when you lose simply due to bad luck.
Hearthstone manages to fix this issue by removing land from the equation. Instead, you start with 0 mana and gain 1 mana per round (up to a max of 10 mana). This not only removes the random element of luck from mana, but also lets you plan ahead for what you can do in a round or two. Naturally, you are still subject to the vagaries of luck with regard to card draw but this simple change removes a massive element of frustration from the game.
CCG business model
The other element of Magic which annoyed me was the simple fact that it was a CCG. As a CCG, the cards you have available with which to build your deck are wholly dependent on how much money you spend on the game.
This leads to a major problem at the budget end of the game (which was how I was playing it).
The nature of a deck construction game like Magic is that there are many different ways to build your deck. For example, you could build a Green deck focused on massive monsters which might take a beating in the early game but, once you got your land out, you can put those monsters into play and then steamroll over your opponent. Alternatively, you could build a Black deck focused on insta-death cards where you don't have to worry about large monsters as you can just instantly blast and kill them.
Which is where you start to see the problem - the metagame. If you built the above green deck and go up against the above Black deck, you are going to lose 8+ games out of 10 (the remaining one or two wins due to bad draw from your oppoent). You lost the metagame as your deck is never going to be competitive against that Black deck which counters your strengths perfectly.
In Magic, your options are pretty limited. You can either find a different opponent and hope that opponent doesn't have a similar deck (not really an option if you are playing with friends). You could hope that your opponent spends money to build a different deck. Alternatively, you could spend money to build a different deck. None of those options are appealing.
Hearthstone, although it is also a CCG, manages to solve this problem simply by virtue of its being an online free to play CCG.
If you come up against a player who perfectly neutralizes your decks strength, its not an issue. As the game is played online, your next match will be against someone new. Even if you were only playing against the same friend again and again, you can easily change your deck by just building a new deck from the available free cards. Sure, you can more easily build competitive decks by spending money but so far, in my week of play, I haven't spent any money and have been able to slowly build my card pool just from normal play.
Long story short, Hearthstone has managed to reignite my passion for deck construction games. If you have never played a CCG before, or left Magic for similar reasons to those I posted above, go check it out!
And it is really, really good.
I have played Magic in the past and, despite liking the game at first, I very quickly grew to dislike the game intensely primarily for two reasons. And Hearthstone manages to fix both of them! Is it any surprise that I'm currently a little hooked?
Land as mana
In Magic, land cards form part of your deck and actually represents the mana resources you use to play cards. The problem with this is that your ability to actually play is wholly dependent on your ability to draw land cards.
I have literally lost count of the number of games where I never drew any additional land and played most of the game with just the 2 or 3 land that I had in my starting hand. Similarly, I have too many memories of games where I drew nothing but land and ended up with 10 land out on the playing field by turn 10. Both of those situations are pretty much insta-lose which is extremely frustrating when you lose simply due to bad luck.
Hearthstone manages to fix this issue by removing land from the equation. Instead, you start with 0 mana and gain 1 mana per round (up to a max of 10 mana). This not only removes the random element of luck from mana, but also lets you plan ahead for what you can do in a round or two. Naturally, you are still subject to the vagaries of luck with regard to card draw but this simple change removes a massive element of frustration from the game.
CCG business model
The other element of Magic which annoyed me was the simple fact that it was a CCG. As a CCG, the cards you have available with which to build your deck are wholly dependent on how much money you spend on the game.
This leads to a major problem at the budget end of the game (which was how I was playing it).
The nature of a deck construction game like Magic is that there are many different ways to build your deck. For example, you could build a Green deck focused on massive monsters which might take a beating in the early game but, once you got your land out, you can put those monsters into play and then steamroll over your opponent. Alternatively, you could build a Black deck focused on insta-death cards where you don't have to worry about large monsters as you can just instantly blast and kill them.
Which is where you start to see the problem - the metagame. If you built the above green deck and go up against the above Black deck, you are going to lose 8+ games out of 10 (the remaining one or two wins due to bad draw from your oppoent). You lost the metagame as your deck is never going to be competitive against that Black deck which counters your strengths perfectly.
In Magic, your options are pretty limited. You can either find a different opponent and hope that opponent doesn't have a similar deck (not really an option if you are playing with friends). You could hope that your opponent spends money to build a different deck. Alternatively, you could spend money to build a different deck. None of those options are appealing.
Hearthstone, although it is also a CCG, manages to solve this problem simply by virtue of its being an online free to play CCG.
If you come up against a player who perfectly neutralizes your decks strength, its not an issue. As the game is played online, your next match will be against someone new. Even if you were only playing against the same friend again and again, you can easily change your deck by just building a new deck from the available free cards. Sure, you can more easily build competitive decks by spending money but so far, in my week of play, I haven't spent any money and have been able to slowly build my card pool just from normal play.
Long story short, Hearthstone has managed to reignite my passion for deck construction games. If you have never played a CCG before, or left Magic for similar reasons to those I posted above, go check it out!
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Aliens: This Time It's War
Aliens: This Time It's War is a free print and play card game designed by Mark Chaplin. You can find more information about it on the boardgamegeek link above but in brief, its a 2 player card game following the events of the Aliens movie. One player controls the marines while they investigate LV-426 and then subsequently try to escape. The other player controls the Aliens and tries to eat as many marines as possible (om nom nom!).
I recently played a solo game which was amazing in how closely it followed the movie. Not identical but with lots of similar beats. Naturally, I had to tell the world about it.
As you all know, after landing on LV-426, the marines found the colonists GPS signals in the atmosphere processing plant. After moving down to investigate, the movie kicks into high gear when they kill an alien chestburster at which point, all hell breaks loose.
Our game picks up at this point with the marines laying down strong covering fire. Without their pulse rifles, the marines relied on their M240 incinerator units. Naturally, Vasquez hid a clip of ammo for her smartgun and promptly opens up a can of whoop-ass!
Despite this strong start, the Alien player waltzed through the marine defences.
A string of "Kill 1 Marine" cards allowed the Alien player to cut through the marines and decimate their ranks. By the time the marines made it back to their APC, they had already lost 6 marines (Wierzbowski, Dietrich, Crowe, Frost, Apone and Drake - the Alien player being up by 1 kill relative to the movie).
Despite the poor start, the marines quickly regrouped and made rapid progress now that they were in their APC. Unfortunately, Ripley drove straight into a security door which slowed down the marines while they found an alternate route around.
Just as the marines made it out and were ready to evac, disaster struck. Their dropship came crashing down in a blaze of fire and lightning, conveniently taking out another two marines.
With nowhere to go, the marines head back to the Ops Center to regroup. Spunkmeyer and Ferro have joined the ranks of the dead, going down with their dropship. Burke also died but really, does anyone care?
While Bishop heads out to remote pilot the last dropship from the USS Sulaco, the remaining marines hole up in the Ops Center. As their last line of defence, the Ops Center sees vicious fighting by both sides as marines and Aliens drop like flies. The Alien player can take the losses. Unfortunately, the marine player is rapidly running out of marines as Hudson, Gorman and Vasquez join the ranks of those not returning from LV-426. The Alien player is pulled back in line with the movie in terms of kills! Is this the start of the marine comeback?
Moving desperately though the tunnels as they escape the Ops Center, the marines leave a Sentry Gun to deal with any pursuing Aliens. A strong play to buy them time to escape to the Sulaco!
Unfortunately, the Aliens once again have the perfect counter. A swarm of Aliens, which proves to be too much - even for the Sentry Gun, and the marines are now in trouble as, despite Hicks heroic last stand, Newt is captured and kissed by an Alien facehugger.
The marines are out of ammo and options. There are simply too many Aliens to deal with. But these are marines and their training kicks in. One last desperate topdeck results in a "Short Controlled Bursts". Perfect! Now they can deal with the Alien Swarm!
However, nothing in the marines training could have prepared them for the Alien menace. The Aliens, moving with unnatural agility, are able to penetrate the marines defensive fire.
Bishop goes down and without anyone to pilot the last dropship, there is nowhere for Ripley to go.
The game ends with a win for the Aliens. Unlike the movies, the marines were not able to escape. In fact, they didn't even make it as far as the Sulaco. And the saddest thing of all?
They never even got to see the Alien Queen.
 |
| My PnP copy |
As you all know, after landing on LV-426, the marines found the colonists GPS signals in the atmosphere processing plant. After moving down to investigate, the movie kicks into high gear when they kill an alien chestburster at which point, all hell breaks loose.
Our game picks up at this point with the marines laying down strong covering fire. Without their pulse rifles, the marines relied on their M240 incinerator units. Naturally, Vasquez hid a clip of ammo for her smartgun and promptly opens up a can of whoop-ass!
 |
| A strong start for the marines! |
 |
| Alas, the Alien player had the perfect counter. |
Despite the poor start, the marines quickly regrouped and made rapid progress now that they were in their APC. Unfortunately, Ripley drove straight into a security door which slowed down the marines while they found an alternate route around.
 |
| I would make a joke about women drivers but that would be sexist. |
 |
| Okay, everyone remember where we parked! |
With nowhere to go, the marines head back to the Ops Center to regroup. Spunkmeyer and Ferro have joined the ranks of the dead, going down with their dropship. Burke also died but really, does anyone care?
 |
| The Alien player staying 1 kill ahead of the movie |
While Bishop heads out to remote pilot the last dropship from the USS Sulaco, the remaining marines hole up in the Ops Center. As their last line of defence, the Ops Center sees vicious fighting by both sides as marines and Aliens drop like flies. The Alien player can take the losses. Unfortunately, the marine player is rapidly running out of marines as Hudson, Gorman and Vasquez join the ranks of those not returning from LV-426. The Alien player is pulled back in line with the movie in terms of kills! Is this the start of the marine comeback?
Moving desperately though the tunnels as they escape the Ops Center, the marines leave a Sentry Gun to deal with any pursuing Aliens. A strong play to buy them time to escape to the Sulaco!
 |
| Used up most of my cards to play the Sentry Gun but totally worth it! |
 |
| Ah, crap. |
The marines are out of ammo and options. There are simply too many Aliens to deal with. But these are marines and their training kicks in. One last desperate topdeck results in a "Short Controlled Bursts". Perfect! Now they can deal with the Alien Swarm!
However, nothing in the marines training could have prepared them for the Alien menace. The Aliens, moving with unnatural agility, are able to penetrate the marines defensive fire.
 |
| Rly!?!?!? |
 |
| Stupid synth! |
The game ends with a win for the Aliens. Unlike the movies, the marines were not able to escape. In fact, they didn't even make it as far as the Sulaco. And the saddest thing of all?
They never even got to see the Alien Queen.
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